Images by John 'K'

Many years ago, while on a family vacation to California, we were driving up Highway 1 on our way to San Francisco, only to find that there had been a mud-slide that had closed the road. We ended up detouring onto highway 280 and in to San Francisco that way. As we drove to (and up) 280, we saw a lovely lake and park, but we didn’t have time to stop and check it out. A few years later, with time to kill before catching the homeward bound flight from San Francisco to Heathrow, I headed west from the airport and stumbled upon the same lake and was able to spend a little time there before heading back to the airport to fly home to the UK, however at the time didn’t make the link between this and the place we had driven by years before.

 

Looking for opportunities to take in some new scenery for well-being/exercise and photographic reasons, I decided to head back to this beautiful place that I’d previously driven by and stumbled on, so after a bit of on-line research, we found ourselves driving out on a lovely sunny Sunday afternoon across the bay and west towards the San Andreas fault and the San Francisco Watershed. We parked the car and followed the numerous walkers, runners, cyclists and the occasional skater onto the Sawyer Camp Trail, which runs parallel to the Lower Crystal Springs Reservoir north from Half Moon Bay Road.

 

The trail itself is paved, and runs for 6 miles along side the reservoir. Having been a dry year, the water level in the reservoir was visibly low, but it was still beautiful – blue and clear. During the walk, we saw many birds, and a number of deer. It was a lovely walk and a wonderful way to kill a beautifully sunny and warm October Sunday afternoon and get some much needed exercise at the same time.

 

Next time we go back, we’ll take a walk along the trail that runs alongside the Upper Crystal Springs Reservoir.

 

It’ll be no surprise to visitors here that I took a few photos while we were walking around – a selection of which can be found in the photo albums section.